*swing*
*swing*
Bittu leaned his body to his back as he dodged the attack, which was about to cut him in half... quite literally.
The skeleton, taking the opportunity, lunged forward, its sword flashing with a swift motion, used a moment of his vulnerable self to launch a lethal attack at his neck. Bittu's danger sense, which was already triggered, accelerated his reaction as he loosed the strength in his legs and let himself fall to the ground.
This helped him escape the fate of having his head separated from his body, as the sword was just a centimeter away from actually doing so. Before the skeleton could do anything else, Bittu rolled away from the skeleton's attack in a blur of motion and stood on his legs.
".... Huff.... Huff.... Huff.... "
Bittu took deep breaths as he gazed at the skeleton that was also looking at him with its eyes, almost as if in annoyance. He wasn't tired actually but, his brain, which was at its own fight, was slowly making his body sluggish.
'How am I supposed to deal with this?', Bittu even now couldn't come up with a way to fight against such attacks.
'...'
'.. Do I really have no choice but to use it again?', Bittu thought with hesitation. Even though he had prepared it as a trump card against this skeleton, he was still reluctant to use it. This was because even though he denies it, he has still developed slight trauma against anything to do with his spirit stat. Unless absolutely necessary, he didn't want to use it... at all!
He thought of various approaches to handle the situation, but he still couldn't come up with a counter and truly, How could it be so easy to come up with a counter against one of the deadliest attacks in the universe within such a brief span of time, with such little information and such low experience? It was to be expected to not come up with a solution, nevertheless; he didn't give up.
He put as much thought as he could spare while fighting against the skeleton to find a solution, but.... obviously couldn't!
"..."
He back flipped as he tried to create an opportunity to break the momentum of this skeleton, but the skeleton instead once again gave a faint as it directed its attack at his head. Bittu, ready for any faints, reacted in time as he immediately used his hands to change his direction as well as accelerate his landing.
Bittu then with swift movement immediately stood up as he released a deep breath and said, ".... Here goes nothing!", with a defeated look on his face, obviously because he couldn't find a solution.
"Cards!"
The skeleton, unaware of Bittu's thought, immediately closed in for a lethal attack seeing its target finally come to a stop. Bittu ignored the skeleton as he once again looked at the description, or more precisely, at the effect of this skill.
[Class: Jocker (Unique class)
Skill 1 : Danger Intuition (passive)
Skill 2 : Sufferance Synergy (passive)
Skill 3 : Card manipulation (active)
Rating : A
Effect 1 : With the help of wind, manipulate the cards.
Description : You can manipulate cards. ]
He took a deep breath as he tried to calm his mind as much as possible to use the unknown effect of the skill.
After coming from that strange realm that he still had no information about, Bittu had thought a lot about what has happened inside it and what the "talking sun" meant when it said, "to make you lose your potential." He ignored the parts about things that he couldn't do anything about.
Only then did he come up with an answer, which was; "How can someone else decide things for me? Just because it said so, will my potential drop or even increase? No! There must me a reason! A reason for that to happen. So, I just need to get to the bottom and search for the problem. If the problem is discovered, then in this world, what is impossible? If you had a strong enough will."
Though he thought, his trauma acted as an obstacle to his goal, stopping him from even taking the first step. But, now that the situation has come to this, where it was do or die since even if he wasn't tired because of unknown reasons to him, his brain cannot hold on for long. So, tampering with his will after coming to terms with his current situation, he went along with it.
Bittu looked at the skeleton that was just fifty centimeters away and had already raised one of its sword to slash and finish him. He released a breath and thought for the cards to finish the skeleton.
*silence*
One sec.
Two sec..
Three sec...
*Badump*
"... Aarrgghh..."
Bittu vomited a mouthful of the deepest shed of blood as the blood vessels all around his body slowly tighten as they pumped his blood at the fastest speed they were capable of..... Sadly, though, that still wasn't enough.
"Cough....cough...."
One by one, from major to minor, be it arteries or ventricles, burst, painting his pale skin with a similar shed of red. His eyes bulged with the overflow of blood on the verge of exploding as blood vessels were all round its retina.
*Badump*
"... Waahhhhhh..... "
He spat out another mouthful of blood, this time almost black!
Only then.... did the blood that was constantly flowing out of his vessels slowed down as the veins in his body relaxed, so did his eyes, which were on the verge of exploding.
Immediately after, he lost consciousness, his body unable to handle the impact of using an A grade attack skill at all. It was already the limit of his body to still keep Bittu alive for another hour before he dies of blood loss.
Even though, it felt like all this happened in a long period but, all it actually took was two seconds... just two seconds, but that was enough to send Bittu hanging on a death thread, trying to take his life and send him to hell. Though that wasn't without result.
Clank!
The skeleton's sword struck on one the card that was around Bittu. The skeleton immediately slashed with its other sword but, before it could even raise its skeletal hand to do so,
*crack*
*crack*
Fine lines almost the size of a needle appeared all around the skeleton's body, from its head to its toe. Not a single uneven cut was around its body, each line delicately etched. If not for the crackling sound from the skeleton, one would take the skeleton for a matchless piece of art!
*crack*
*brust*
Unable to handle the pressure of such an attack, the skeleton immediately burst into fine sand as it scattered. Before it could reach the ground, it glowed as two things appeared out of thin air.
An orb and a glass with something inside it!
Right now, Bittu was obviously not in the condition to care about the reward given by the dungeon, as he couldn't even see the notifications that flashed before him after the orb of light entered his body.
[You killed a Lv. 3 mutated skeleton warrior. ]
[You have absorbed the soul power of a mutated skeleton warrior. Stamina +1 ]
[Soul power : 24/200] -> [Soul power : 74/200]
....
*Drip*
*Drip*
On the cold ground, now washed by his warm blood, Bittu laid unaware of his surrounding and his own condition. Blood like water was constantly flowing out of his body while his constitution was trying to heal his wounds, and prevent this heavy blood loss, but the platelets in his body had gone down severely because of the massive loss.
His condition at this point was already beyond anything human medical science was capable of. Now, it wasn't an exaggeration to say that his life was at its end.
*sigh*
Suddenly, a sigh once again echoed in the closed walls of the dungeon as a masked figure materialized infront of him, its sudden appearance shrouded in mystery.
His black raven coloured suit, coupled with his white mask, was a sight to behold. Currently, with his defeated posture that spoke volumes, this man was watching Bittu, his irritation palpable as he muttered under his breath with his shoulders slumped in resignation as he whispered to no one in particular.
".... Did you not learn your lesson from the last carelessness? Did you have to try something that you have no information about at all? You could have just used the defense of the cards to trap and finish that weakling.," the masked man truly wished to go back in time and add one more trait into his owner so that he would not do something stupid that will only lead him to his death.
*sigh*
The masked man let out a weary sigh, the familiar feeling of disappointment washing over him once more as he said, " You should find someone to help you. From your behavior, you absolutely need it."
The masked man then picked up the glass and read its status naturally, almost as if it had done it countless times and, as a matter of fact, it did but through Bittu. It's just that Bittu wasn't proficient in it because of his condition of spirit failure or else he would have grasped it instantly, just like the masked man.
A status flashed before the masked man.
[....]